Capturing images in digital form and subjecting the captured images to digital image editing processes is commonplace. In some instances during digital image editing, it is desired to stretch or reduce an existing image so that it is resized to a desired form. For example, most photocopiers allow scanned documents to be resized to either larger or smaller forms.
During image resizing, horizontal and/or vertical pixel lines of the image to be resized are either duplicated or removed depending on whether the image to be resized is being stretched or reduced. The Nearest Neighbour method is a common technique used to duplicate or remove pixel lines during image resizing. Although the Nearest Neighbour method allows images to be resized quickly and relatively easily without requiring intensive processing, the Nearest Neighbour method suffers disadvantages. During image resizing using the Nearest Neighbour method, pixel lines are duplicated or removed arbitrarily without regard to the effect that the duplicated or removed pixel lines will have on the resized image. As a result, in the case of image reducing important information in the original image may be lost in the resized image. In the case of image stretching, pixel lines in the resized image may be thickened giving the resized image a different visual appearance.
Other image resizing methods such as for example, intensity adjustment, bilinear interpolation and bicubic interpolation resizing methods have been considered. Unfortunately, these methods also suffer disadvantages resulting in resized images that visually deviate from the original images. As will be appreciated, there exists a need for an image resizing technique that allows resized images to be generated while retaining the visual appearance of the original images.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for resizing images.